1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer systems and in particular to systems which allow software to indicate to hardware that it should alter its cache state.
2. Description of Background
In a multiprocessing system where consistent memory usage model is required, memory usage among different processors is managed using cache coherency ownership schemes. These schemes usually involve various ownership states for a cache line. These states include read-only (or commonly known as shared), and exclusive (where a certain processor has the sole and explicit update rights to the cache line, sometimes known as store access).
For one such protocol used for a strongly-ordered memory consistency model, as in IBM's z/Architecture implemented by IBM System z processors, when a processor is requesting rights to update a line, e.g. when it is executing a “Store” instruction, it will check its local cache (L1) for the line's ownership state. If the processor finds out that the line is either currently shared or is not in its cache at all, it will then send an “exclusive ownership request” to the storage controller (SC) which serves as a central coherency manager.
The storage controller (SC) tracks which processor, if any, currently owns a line exclusively. If deemed necessary, the storage controller (SC) will then send a “cross interrogate” (XI) or “ownership change” request to another processor which currently owns that line to release its exclusive rights. Once the current owning processor has responded to the XI and responded that the exclusive ownership is released, the requesting processor will then be given exclusive update rights to the line requested.
In a large SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing) system, it is common that various processes running on different processors update the same cache lines, but at different times. When a line is updated by one process, and then another process starts up, updating the same line by that other process will encounter delays required for XI acknowledgement while exchanging exclusive ownerships from one processor to another. These delays amount to a large performance degradation as number of processes goes up that reuse the same cache lines.